Snowden: Auction of stolen NSA malware likely political

A public auction of stolen NSA malware may be a warning to the U.S. that blaming Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee could have dire consequences, says Edward Snowden, who also famously breached NSA security.

“This leak looks like a somebody sending a message that an escalation in the attribution game could get messy fast,” Snowden tweeted. “This leak is likely a warning that someone can prove U.S. responsibility for any attacks that originated from this malware server.”

In his tweets Snowden says it looks like someone has hacked an NSA staging server from which it launched attacks, and that’s not such a big deal. “NSA malware staging servers getting hacked by a rival is not new,” he says.

But what is new is that whoever stole it is publicizing it. “This leak is likely a warning that someone can prove U.S. responsibility for any attacks that originated from this malware server,” Snowden writes. “That could have significant foreign policy consequences. Particularly if any of those operations targeted U.S. allies. Particularly if any of those operations targeted elections.”

So the U.S. might be forced to buffer its response to the alleged Russian hack of the DNC or else Russia will expose attacks that the NSA made against other countries.

Snowden says that whoever had hacked the NSA server lost access to it in June 2013 and notes that was when the NSA documents he stole were published. He speculates the NSA might have switched to a different server as a security precaution in reaction to his leak. “You're welcome, @NSAGov. Lots of love,” he tweets.

Copyright 2016 IDG Communications. ABN 14 001 592 650. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of IDG Communications is prohibited.